Key Message
Azithromycin has been widely used to treat childhood asthma because of
its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects, but there are
inconsistent conclusions on children. The existing systematic reviews
included insufficient studies.
The purpose of this study was to further evaluate the efficacy and
safety of azithromycin in childhood asthma.
Our findings suggested that azithromycin was beneficial in improving
clinical symptoms and some lung function in children, including
post-treatment Childhood Asthma Control Test scores,
FEV1% of predicted value, FEV1/FVC% of
predicted value, PEF% of predicted value, and did not increase adverse
events when combined with other anti-asthma drugs.